Nap Times Over Kiddie
The waiting room was buzzing constantly, families and couples coming in and out, people wheeling out their loved ones and helping them into a car. One of the overhead lights flickered absently, and if Tony wasn’t so busy thinking, he would have tinkered with it as a distraction. May was running her nails over the lip of an overpriced hospital coffee that tasted like warmed dirt, the inconsistent tapping of her fingers on the lid had been going steady for almost forty-three minutes now, and Tony was about ready to run head first into a wall.
“I’m just going to ask the lady at the desk if there’s any news on P –”
“There isn’t, she promised she’d come directly to us if there was, just try not to think about it,” he was being hypocritical, and he knew it. He was sitting with his hands pressed against his cheek while his mind connected all the dots from the past year.
The last time he could remember Peter acting like himself had been the few days before May’s promotion, which he spent at the workshop. Tony hadn’t picked up on the oddity of the situation at first, Peter had texted him as normal throughout that week, he had mentioned May’s promotion in passing, then went dead silent for a month, no phone calls, no weekly visits to the apartment, nothing. He had taken it upon himself to start dropping by the apartment, but each time he asked about the kid, Carter had said the teen was out.
How could he have trusted Carter in the first place? Why had he ever listened when the man told him Peter wasn’t at home? He should have been able to stop everything.
He counted through the times he had seen Peter, and everything began to slide into place. The first time he saw the kid after that month of silence, he had been ‘sick.’ Tony remembered how shockingly run down and exhausted the usually energetic teen had looked. He remembered how terrified Peter had been when Tony had walked into his room, how he backed up and almost stepped into his desk before realising who it was.
God, he remembered the boy closing his eyes and leaning into his hand as he checked his temperature, he could still feel the smaller hand reaching up and wrapping lightly around his wrist, holding the gentle touch in its place. The knowledge that Peter had immediately held onto his wrist, as if he was trying to keep the contact for as long as he could, made his heart stutter guiltily. He should have stayed, should have pressed more, asked what was wrong, done anything other than leave.
That day, as he was leaving, Peter had started to say something before he caught himself and muttered about driving safely. He wondered if Peter had wanted to tell him then, that felt like so long ago though, how much had his kid endured?
The lock that looked like Peter had put on his door himself made too much sense now, and so did the fact that the next visit it looked like it had been ripped from the wall. Looking back now, it all seemed so stupidly obvious... the way he retreated into himself, how quiet he was, how timid and afraid of every little movement, how tired he was, how much weight he lost, how he wore long sleeves and baggy clothing even when it was warm, how he never looked like himself.
Tony felt sick when he remembered noticing how Peter had stopped doing his hair the way he normally did, he felt nausea bubbling and guilt ripping away inside him when he thought of how much he had preferred the boy’s loose, untamed curls over the combed and gelled down hair. He felt even sicker when he realised that Carter had probably used the extra length to his advantage. The horrible, jolting crash he had heard from the mic echoed through his skull, popping pictures of those piercing green eyes narrowing as that man shoved Peter’s head into the desk, leaving him bloody and unconscious.
“Tony… Tony?” He looked up at May, who had apparently lifted her hand from the coffee cup to rest it on his shoulder, he hadn’t even noticed the tapping stop. “You should take a quick breather, go splash some water on your face and get a drink.” The mechanic glanced at the emergency room doors, then to the receptionist who was looking lazily at her screen.
“Okay,” he managed, his voice barely a whisper yet still finding a way to crack emotively. “I’ll do that, you want something to drink?” He took the empty cup from her as he stood, shrugging as she shook her head no.
The stalls were empty, it was dark outside, and the lights didn’t flicker like they had in the waiting room. He inadvertently shuddered when the ice-cold water poured out of the faucet and drenched his cupped hands. Regretting his decision immediately, Tony leaned over the sink and splashed the water over his face, wiping his brow and cheeks before wrinkling his nose as a painfully low-quality paper towel scratched his skin dry.
The vending machine had just been restocked, but somehow, he still couldn’t find anything worth drinking, so he opted to pinch his nose and down a luke-warm cup of the dirt coffee May had been drinking. As he dragged himself down the hallways and back to the waiting area, he noticed numerous roaming eyes on him, and sure, it wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to. Tony Stark, Iron Man, people were bound to recognise him, but that didn’t feel like what was happening now.
Looking down, he saw why people must have been staring.
Dried blood, Peter’s blood, was still smeared across his shirt and up along the side of his neck. It was obvious that he had been holding someone who had been injured, but at the same time, it also looked like he had been brutally attacked by a vampire. Either way, it was drawing people’s eye and he didn’t want them knowing anything, he didn’t want anyone pitying him because he had been the one to cradle his broken child as he sobbed into the familiar curls, matted with wet crimson.
Slumping back down in the chair beside May, he began to pick at the crusted blood on his neck, where Peter had hidden his tears only hours before.
Beaten, bruised, abused by someone he should have been able to trust.
----
In some ways, the hospital waiting room was separate from the rest of the world. The clocks were slower, everyone’s heads hung, the smell of antiseptic and bacterial wipes wafted throughout the room and mixed with lingering coffee scents. It almost felt unreal, detached, to Tony as he watched people being wheeled into recovery rooms. Without fail, the sound of the doors spinning open and wheels rolling over the linoleum never failed to rouse him from where he was staring at pieces of polystyrene he had ripped up and left on the seat beside him.
None of the beds ever held Peter, and honestly, he was almost afraid to see the bed that eventually would.
May stepped outside to call her work and let them know that she wouldn’t be coming in for the next few shifts, luckily, they were understanding, but it didn’t seem to make time move any faster.
“You know you need to tell him now, don’t you?” He looked at May with a lost expression on his face, he didn’t feel like forcing words, so he nodded slowly and ripped apart another piece of polystyrene.
“I think I’m going to wait until I can get him transferred to the Med Bay for recovery, then I’ll talk to him about it.” It was May’s turn to nod, and Tony wondered whether he should have just taken Peter straight to the tower for treatment, at least then he could control when he got to see the kid, considering he owned the place. “Why was Carter here?” He hated to think about what could have happened if he hadn’t found out the man was at the same hospital, what could have happened if Carter figured out what room Peter was in.
“I got the call halfway through my shift, they said he’d been speeding and lost control of the car. He broke his wrist and the airbag gave him a minor concussion, but they needed someone to pick him up and take him home, so I came over and then… then you called.” She rubbed her eye, a small smudge of what must have been mascara, smeared under her eye, mixing with the grey bags slowly beginning to form as she continued to wait for any news of her nephew. So, Carter had been speeding, presumably trying to skip town before Tony found him. “D – did he just snap or was there a reason he… he tried to, k – kill Peter?” She looked visibly sick even saying the words aloud, and Tony understood how much guilt she must have been harbouring, but it wasn’t her fault the man she invited into her life turned out to be a lying child abuser.
“I got suspicious, I planted a mic under Pete’s desk, he came in yelling, telling the kid off for spending time with me… he called him a brat and said some things about me spoiling him. He broke a laptop and I – I think Peter tried to say he was just jealous of me, but… he, uh, he hit the desk too hard and the mic dislodged, and that’s when – that’s when Carter went off and crushed the mic, I don’t know what happened while I was flying but the room was a mess and he was gone when I got there.”
Snapshots from his memory of the bedroom’s state flipped through his head like a photo album, but in the back of his mind he could still remember the first time he saw it. With a little five-year-old’s hand clutching his and pulling him down the hall, into the room, the lack of any substantial decoration, the tiny rocket ship imprinted at the bottom of his starry curtains.
The tiny voice and massive brown orbs peering up at him, ‘Mister Stark, are you gonna keep visiting?’ The small hand tugging at his sleeve as he bent down and met those impossibly wide, hazel eyes.
Peter told him he was good at puzzles that day. Nine years later and he hadn’t been able to solve the puzzle that would protect the most precious thing in his life.
“Miss Parker? They’re moving your son to the recovery room now, surgery went well.” The receptionist smiled at May, not bothering to address Tony, who was still covered in blood.
“He’s my nephew, but thank you so much, can we see him?” The woman opened her mouth to respond but the doors were opening and there was a bed rolling through the doorway, bleached white blankets tucked up around a lump that somehow seemed too small to be Peter.
“Immediate family can follow us to his room please, uh, Sir?” The bed continued to roll even as Tony whirred impatiently alongside it, catching sporadic glimpses of fluffy curls he knew too well that poked out from underneath thick bandaging.
“I am immediate family, just… is he okay, will he wake up soon?” The doctor looked at him closely, his eyes darting to the faded graphic shirt now stained partially red, to his stressed-mussed hair and messy workshop jeans. “Jesus, you can sign a non-disclosure form later, I’m his biological father. Try to keep it under wraps for now.” He didn’t peel his eyes away from Peter as he spoke, just kept pace with the bed and resisted the urge to curl a hand into the limp one that laid atop the blankets.
“He’ll wake up once the anaesthetics wear off, it’ll be a good half hour to a full one, but after that he needs to rest, and we’ll be keeping him here overnight for observation and intravenous fluids.” A nurse held open large double doors as they positioned the bed and hooked the teen up to an IV, pointing out the call button to May and telling them to press it once the boy woke. “One of our nurses will be checking in periodically and I’ll come in to discuss his condition with you once he’s woken up.” There was a smile, a final check over of the medication dosage Peter was given, and then May and Tony were sat beside the bed where an unresponsive teenager laid silently.
Thick, cream-coloured gauze criss-crossed over sections of Peter’s head, butterfly bandages were plastered over split skin on his forehead, temple, cheekbones, jawline and above his eyebrows. There was a brace over one of his wrists and the other one was lined with hand and fingernail marks that made Tony’s eyes squeeze shut in guilty pain.
Dark, shadowy bruising lay over the boy’s eye, cheekbones, jawline and drifted from his neck until it dipped below his hospital gown into areas of his small body that were still covered. Tony didn’t know if he was ready to see the damage that lingered along Peter’s back, torso and legs, let alone any internal damage that may have occurred. He kept trying to remember the exact sensation of Carter’s nose cracking under his fist and the expression he carried as the officers clipped handcuffs onto his wrists and escorted him into the back of their car.
His eyes stuck onto Peter’s wrists which were clouded by dark handprints and crescent shaped indents. They littered his skin and Tony could picture the hurt look on the kid’s innocent face as he whimpered from his desk chair and whispered softly that he was in pain.
Because of course he was in pain. How could he have not been in severe emotional and physical pain? He spent over a year stuck in the apartment with Carter, and neither Tony nor May knew what the hell had been going on behind closed doors.
This wasn’t okay, this was Peter Parker, his son, who had been beaten into submission and forced to keep his mouth shut about all of it for over a year. An entire year, of which over half was spent with May at work and him trapped, alone in the apartment with a monster hosting sage green eyes that were perfectly capable of lying. Eyes that hid away the pain he was inflicting on a sweet, once carefree teenager that had to lock himself in the bathroom and cry himself to sleep every night because all he got was a rough shove and a hushed threat before Carter was off to work. Whose bin was filled with old icepacks and bandage packaging, who passed out from dehydration while he was forced to trek to and from school everyday without food or a kiss-goodbye from someone who truly loved him.
All the phone calls, all the seemingly abrupt hugs and affection that Peter had never displayed before, they were all because he needed somebody to be there for him. He had needed someone to offset the harsh slaps and uncaring nature, and that someone had been Tony, but he hadn’t known it. God, if he had… if he had known what Peter so desperately needed for all those months, maybe things could have been different, maybe the teen could have trusted him enough to ask for help.
Maybe he could have saved Peter long before he ended up in the emergency room, swaddled in dressing, wrist braces and butterfly bandages.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, to both May and Peter, to Ben, to Mary, to Richard. To anyone who had been there for Peter and hadn’t let him down just like what he had done.
Let his kid down.
“You don’t need to be, it isn’t your fault.” May whispered right back from the opposite side of the bed, “I should be thanking you for saving him. I don’t know what I would have done if Carter had actually… if he hadn’t driven away before you got there, if – if he had really…”
She couldn’t say the words, but Tony knew what she was thinking. Neither of them would have ever forgiven themselves if Carter had truly managed to stop Peter’s heart. If he had wiped away the permanent light shining in that kid’s eyes, if he had left him, dead, lying at his desk for someone to find his body.
Tony didn’t know what he would have done if he had gotten to the apartment too late, if he had burst into Peter’s room only to find his cold, lifeless body, slumped over in his desk chair.
Would it have been his fault? Wasn’t all of it his fault? The whole motivation Carter seemed to operate under was that he thought Peter was spoilt and deserved to be punished when he spent time with Tony. Was every hit his fault? What had happened after Tuesday night? What did Carter do when he found out about Peter walking to the tower after climbing out the fire escape and staying the night with Tony?
“May, did you ever get complaints from neighbours about noise?” The woman furrowed her brow for a minute in thought before she appeared to realise what Tony was asking.
“I did find a formal noise complaint letter in the bin once, I think it was saying something about… yelling and wailing,” she covered her mouth with her hand and looked down at Peter with watery eyes. “I – I asked Carter about it later and he told me that him and Peter had – had watched a horror movie and must have left the volume on too loud with all the screaming… I – I didn’t even question it at the time but, oh god…”
“Hey, May honestly you couldn’t have known, he was manipulative… he was too good at lying to you and there wasn’t any reason for you not to trust him, he always acted differently around you, there was no way you could have known.”
“B – but he, Peter – he must have been…” Again, the words went unsaid, but they were perfectly clear.
Carter had hurt Peter to the point where he had wailed and cried hard enough for the neighbours to complain, and yet nobody had done anything to save him.
“I know… I know May, it’s – it’s just really hard to think about all the times I should’ve known something was wrong and I didn’t –”
“You can’t just put this on yourself Tony, I was the one living in the apartment, for god’s sake I dated the man that hit Peter on a regular basis!” Her voice dropped almost as quickly as it had risen, and she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear frustratedly. “I should never have agreed to living together so early… I shouldn’t have taken that promotion, I was out all day and he was – Peter was alone with him for so much time.”
“And I should never have driven back home, I should have ditched the mic and just decked Carter then and there as soon as I saw the black eye. Look, we both let things slip past, but if we spend all our time pointing fingers at ourselves –”
“Peter won’t have anyone to help him recover… yeah, I know.” She sighed but smiled weakly, a finger brushed over the blanket beside Peter’s hand and Tony leant over to do the same, his hand cupping the limp fingers and rubbing gentle circles over his thumb fondly.
“He’ll be okay… I’ll make sure he’s okay.” Tony meant what he said with every fibre of his soul, with every little reassuring squeeze he pressed into Peter’s unmoving hand he grew even surer of his own capability to hold his son tight and never let him go again. “I’m gonna make sure you’re okay kiddo, I promise you’ll be okay now.”
As the hour dragged past, May left for another cup of coffee, his head slowly dipped forward until it was rested on the mattress beside Peter’s jutting hipbone, and his hand still gripped, fingers intertwined with his kid’s. Tony vaguely acknowledged the nurse who checked in on the room once or twice and he lifted his head tiredly when May came back, but other than that he kept his cheek rested on the scratchy hospital sheets and watched Peter’s chest rise and fall.
“He should be waking up very shortly, and the doctor will come in and talk about his condition and recovery with you.” The nurse smiled sweetly, and May thanked her as Tony drew lazy circles over the back of Peter’s hand. “He’ll be incredibly drowsy from the anaesthetics but please let me know if he’s experiencing any pain.”
Peter’s face was even, none of the familiar timidity that he expressed when he had been conscious was present. His lips were slightly parted, his eyelids moved as his eyes flickered beneath them and the raspy whistling sound he had made before surgery was gone. The teen looked so much younger and smaller, wrapped in bandages and laid out in a large hospital bed, it hurt to see him looking so painfully vulnerable and hurt. The thick, oversized sweatshirts had covered more than just the hand and fingernail marks, they had masked just how underweight the boy had gotten, his wrists were bony, and his elbows jutted out. The obviously malnourished state Peter was in created a sense of weakness and fragility that made Tony just that more protective, pushed him over the edge to the point where he needed to hold his son’s hand and keep him close for fear of anything else happening to the child who had already endured so much more than he should ever have had to.
“His monitor,” May breathed quietly, her eyes flicking between Peter’s face and the heart rate monitor, which was beginning to pick up slightly. Tony shuffled in his chair, shifting closer to Peter as he waited with a pool of anxiety in his chest.
Would Peter hate him for not saving him quicker? How terrified would he be of every little movement now? What emotional state would he even be in?
Peter’s breath hitched slightly, and his small fingers tightened in Tony’s hand, which he squeezed back reassuringly.
“Hey kiddie, nap time’s over,” he whispered softly, trying too hard to keep the wobble from his voice as he willed it not to crack with the overload of emotion that flooded him as the teen stirred.
----
Peter could feel his mind and body slowly starting back up like a delayed computer, it was dark, he felt slow and somewhat hazy as his fingers tensed in reaction. It took him some time to work out where his body was and what he could feel, but luckily, he didn’t notice much pain. Everything felt heavy and uncomfortably stiff as he clawed his way back to consciousness. Eventually, sounds began to swirl into effect, he heard a steady bleeping, distant humming and shoes clicking back and forth on linoleum. Muffled voices came next, and it took his head a surprising amount of time to pick apart the words, so he could fully process them for what they were.
“Are you telling him?” May. That sounded like May, which meant she was okay.
May’s okay, she’s okay, Carter didn’t hurt her, she’s okay, she’s okay.
“About what’s happening to Carter or… or the other thing?”
TonyTonyTony, he’s here, he’s here, he loves me too. Tonylovesmetoo.
What’s happening to Carter? Where was he? He couldn’t remember what had led him to this point, why everything smelt so clean and why he was lying, floating in a tough mattress with scratchy blankets and the insistent beep of some type of machinery.
Peter could piece together snippets if he tried hard enough, he remembered the floor against his cheek as Carter’s belt tore apart his back, how he bit down on his arm to muffle cries. He could see Tony, fingering through his homework before tilting his chair and locking onto his eye, a look on his face that didn’t register as anything happy.
The crushing weight of sitting at his desk while Tony was out, alone with Carter, knowing that as soon as the man came home he would be paying the price for time spent with the closest thing he had to a father.
Arnica cream and a hug that he didn’t instigate, because Tony had been the one to, he leaned down and pulled Peter into his chest while Carter stood only feet away with a piercing look on his face. He smelled like coffee and the metallic, greasy scent of the workshop that he had become so accustomed to.
A tear, blazing a path down his cheek for many more to follow, as he told Tony ‘I love you.’
The slam of a door, the weak, pitiful stuttering of his own sobs as he waited for the inevitable.
Fists. Hands in his hair. Yelling. Threats. Pain, pain, pain that he couldn’t escape from unless he was willing to let someone he loved take the hit instead, and he would never be okay with that.
A degrading slap across his cheek that stung as much as all the words did. His face forced down into the unforgiving wood of his desk and the almost inaudible pop as something dislodged from underneath it. The small, black mic that he hadn’t ever seen before, held in Carter’s hand along with the most outraged, ferocious, and wrathful expression which peeled across his face like fire.
‘You aren’t ever going to show anyone this now, you aren’t going to show anyone anything, ever again.’
Carter was going to kill him, he was going to die, and he never told Tony how much he meant. He was never going to apologise for lying, he was never going to tell May he was sorry that he wasn’t good enough to make her as happy as Carter could.
He was sorry, he was so, so sorry.
He was going to die…
----
“Pete? You with us sweetie?” May leaned forward in her chair and watched as Tony rubbed Peter’s hand encouragingly.
“Hey buddy, you’re okay,” Tony kept his voice hushed, his movements minimal as he felt Peter slowly starting to return his grip. “Hi, hey kid,” the boy’s eyelashes were fluttering, and he moved into his eyeline, watching with a small smile as the doe eyes slowly flicked open, batting a few times before one of them squinted awkwardly around the still black eye. “Peter,” he whispered fondly, affection willingly soaking his voice as he felt himself softening when confused, brown eyes met his.
“M – Mister St… T – Tony?” The billionaire had never understood why the kid had insisted on calling him Mr. Stark for so long, but once he finally slipped into the habit of just Tony, things were better. Whenever the teen was scared, tired or genuinely not paying attention, he would stumble and mix the names up, it hadn’t happened since he was younger, but Carter’s influence had clearly wavered that confidence.
Peter’s head lolled on the pillows and his gaze floated across the bed to where May was smiling too. “May,” he sighed quietly, his eyes drifting back to Tony’s. “Wh – Wh…”
“You’re okay, we’re in a hospital, everything’s alright now, he’s gone. You’re safe.” Something about Tony’s reassurance let Peter’s crumpling barricade drop, and his lip wobbled as he clutched the mechanics hand even tighter. “You’re safe now,” he repeated, reciprocating the teen’s desperate need for closeness.
“I – I don’t… I didn’t m – mean to, I – I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Tony’s smile dropped slightly as he shook his head. Peter didn’t need to be sorry, he was okay now, everything was okay.
“No kid, it’s okay, don’t apologise. Hey, hey,” he rose deliberately from his chair and moved up along the side of the bed until he was stood beside the pillows keeping Peter’s head up. “I’m here kiddo, c’mere.”
Tony stroked the pad of his thumb over Peter’s chin gently, letting him reach out gingerly to cling at his other arm instinctively. “I got you, I know,” the teen’s hands were shaking slightly but he gladly pushed closer to the embrace, letting himself be coddled as his constant nerves restrung themselves. He felt May rubbing an unbandaged section of his shoulder warmly, she was shushing his fear and murmuring comforts much like Tony’s.
“The doctor’s coming in soon, you want some water?” May was holding a plastic cup and he nodded stiffly, holding Tony’s hand even as he pulled back to let him drink. His throat was dry and scratchy as he swallowed the water, but it was nice to feel the hand holding his tighten in response to his small cough of discomfort.
“I – I don’t remember h – how I got here… Wh – what happened?” His voice was croaky and weak, but he continued to tug at the short sleeves of his hospital gown, feeling uneasy as his injuries were on display for the first time in a long time.
“What’s the last thing you remember Pete?” Tony glanced to May, worry flashing through his expression momentarily. Had he hit his head too hard? Did the kid have temporary amnesia?
“Y – you…” Peter picked at a stray blanket thread and knew that now wasn’t the right time to freeze up and cover his face as a flush tinted his cheeks. “You love me t – too,” he said quietly, not looking up into Tony’s eyes.
The small circles being rubbed over the back of his hand stilled, and for a moment the boy feared he had said the wrong thing, that no, the playboy Tony Stark and the hero Iron Man, could never love a spoiled brat like Peter Parker.
But without fail, like every other time in his life, Tony smiled and brushed a faint knuckle over Peter’s unbruised cheek with a paternal fondness glowing in his eyes which the teen failed to recognise.
“Yeah, I love you too kiddo, course I do.” May beamed at the two and had the same understanding smile on her face as Peter reached out a hand and Tony indulged the movement with a second embrace. “I love you so much, don’t ever forget that, okay?”
“I won’t,” Peter promised from where his chin was rested on the man’s shoulder, burying his full-faced blush. After a long delay, Tony pulled back and looked at the boy more, before answering his question.
“I called an ambulance, they brought you here. The doctor’s coming now, and he’ll talk to all of us about… about how you’re doing.” He curled a finger under Peter’s chin and met his eyes seriously, “you’ll tell me if you start to feel any pain, or if you start to get sick from the anaesthetics wearing off?” The teen nodded and let Tony twirl a stray curl around his finger, purposefully ignoring the bandages and instead taking the time to give more comfort for the child that seemed so much smaller than what he had ever been before.
A soft knock on the door had Peter’s hand tightening, but Tony let his fingers dip down to the nape of his neck, so he could placatingly stroke at the curls that rested there. “You’re okay,” he murmured as May waved the doctor in before dropping her hand back to Peter’s shoulder.
“Hi Peter…” the man squinted at his board before straightening up and tapping a pen against the paper, “Peter Parker.” The teen managed a meek smile which felt too much like the ones he had given Tony and May when they asked him questions he couldn’t answer honestly. “Can I ask how you’re feeling? Any pain, discomfort, trouble breathing at all?” Peter shook his head and the doctor looked pleased at that. “Well, I’m Doctor Marshall, I’ll be discussing your condition and asking a few questions. Let me know if you start to feel sick, you may have some nausea as the anaesthetics make their way out of your system.”
Peter could feel Tony’s body shifting closer to him as the man flicked a sheet of paper over and took a breath before speaking. “So, the biggest focus we had for you in surgery was sorting out the multiple fractured ribs, they weren’t particularly recent injuries, do you mind telling me when exactly they occurred?”
“Uh, t – two days ago, I think.” He felt like squirming under the three pairs of eyes that seemed to be on just him, but only because eyes on him meant he had done something wrong.
“Alright, we’ve put in some titanium plates to stabilise the fractured and cracked ribs, just so we can make sure they heal properly.” The doctor didn’t seem threatening, in fact, he was clearly making the effort to speak at a lower volume, he was situated a few steps away from the bed and he wasn’t making any movements closer to where Peter was laid. “You’ve sustained a linear skull fracture, but with the amount of bruising and tissue damage around your head, you also seem to have a grade three concussion. I’m going to ask a few simple questions just to completely rule out any serious brain damage, alright?” Tony watched the teen nod, he squeezed his hand in reassurance and made sure his warm smile was visible. “Can you tell me where you are?”
“I – in a hospital,” Doctor Marshall nodded and checked something on his board with a tick.
“And can you state your full name for me?” The pen hovered above his page.
“Peter B – Benjamin Parker,” he answered, listening to the scribble of pen on paper as Tony’s finger rubbed over the back of his hand comfortingly.
“Can you give me your age and read that clock on the wall?” Peter blinked before doing what the man asked, relaxing as he nodded once more. “That’s very good, I’m happy to move on now,” he flipped over to a second page and shifted his weight to the opposite leg, resting the clipboard against his hip and twiddling the pen in his opposite hand. “Your wrist fracture should heal nicely, but you’ll need to keep the brace on to limit too much movement. The shin bone was bruised so we’ve propped it up to relieve swelling and I’m going to prescribe some nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for that, along with some pain relievers for the ribs, which we’ll slowly wean you off.”
The doctor picked the board up and held it closer to his chest, his eyes meeting Peter’s with a more serious look on his face. “Now, Peter, are you comfortable with me discussing your back, or would you prefer more privacy?”
Tony’s eyebrow peaked, May tilted her head to look at her nephew concernedly as his face reddened and his fingers tightened once again. “I’m happy to speak with May and Tony outside, but I’m going to need to ask some more questions for legality reasons.” Peter opened his mouth to answer, he was calmed when Tony’s spare hand reached up to his upper arm and rested there gently, as if providing silent support.
“I – I’m okay. You… you can ask h – here,” his shoulders raised minutely, and he chewed the inside of his lip worriedly.
“Alright, thank you.” With Peter’s answer, the Doctor seemed ready to directly address Tony. “I’m aware that when you called the ambulance you notified them that this was a case of child abuse, is that correct?” He had turned to face Tony, and the mechanic nodded once, keeping his hand over Peter’s as he did so. “Right well, I’m going to asks you some questions Peter, if you’re feeling overwhelmed or don’t feel comfortable answering anything, let me know.” Doctor Marshall waited for a nod of approval from the teen before he turned a page on his clipboard and clicked his pen. “I’m going to need to focus on your back, and it’s important for us to understand how exactly it occurred. Could you tell me who is giving you these injuries?” Peter swallowed, and his finger twitched, “just their name and their relationship to you, nobody is going to be upset, you aren’t in trouble.”
“His… his name’s C – Carter, he’s my a – aunts’ boyfriend.” May’s lips stretched thinly, and Tony knew she was harbouring the guilt, much like he was.
“Perfect, thank you for that,” again, another flick of his pen on the page and his eyes darting as he read aloud the next question. “Who else, if there was anybody else involved, saw it happen?” Peter hesitated, as if thinking.
“I – I don’t know… it – it happened in… it’s happened in public before, but I don’t know if anyone s – saw it.” The boy looked down at his lap and then spoke softly, “b – but nobody else saw him, um, m – my back I mean.” The doctor nodded in understanding, but May and Tony were still lost.
“Nobody was there when the injury on your back occurred, it wasn’t in public?” Peter shook his head and blew out a shaky breath, silently wishing he could just go back to Tuesday night and scream for help as Carter’s rough hand pulled him across the crosswalk while he tried desperately to catch the eye of the multiple taxi driver’s waiting for them to pass.
“No,” he whispered quietly, “n – nobody saw, no one was there, it – it was at home.” Tony pulled in air through his nose and focused on the residual memory of Carter’s nose cartilage snapping underneath his open-palmed hit.
He wasn’t there for Peter then, but he was now. He was watching now, the apartment, the lab, that was home for his kid and he was never going to feel threatened in his home again.
“Alright, just a few more questions. When did this occur? Time of day, how long it lasted, anything you can remember.”
“Th – three days ago, in the morning… when I t – tried to leave for school.” The doctor was writing down what he said, and when he looked up and tilted his hand, Peter continued. “I – I don’t know how long it was, I uhm…” Peter looked away again, staring down at the blankets, frowning like they had done something to offend him as his cheeks heated again. “I passed out, s – so I don’t know, s – sorry.”
“No need to be sorry, that’s completely fine.” The doctor did seem mildly concerned when Peter said he had been unconscious, but nothing showed on his face. “Could you estimate how long you were out for? The concussion could be to blame.”
“S – sometime from about eight till h – he was leaving for work. I – I woke up when he left, that’s all I know,” the teen was looking at the hand that was latched onto Tony’s, and it squeezed gently. “I don’t… I don’t know if he – if he kept going after I p – passed out or not.”
Tony and May were growing more concerned, and they ached to ask what exactly Carter had done to Peter’s back. The doctor was more focused on working through the questions he was required to ask, taking it at a pace the boy seemed comfortable with.
“Can you describe how the injury occurred? We were able to make some assumptions based on your condition when you came in, but I’d like to be certain so that when the incident is looked over in court, or you press charges, file restraining orders, anything of the type, we can use this to support your case.” The man looked over to May, “it’s entirely up to you and Peter, you don’t need to worry about it now, but we need to get as much detail as possible for medical records.” May and Tony nodded, and they stayed silent for Peter to answer when he was ready.
“It… h – he just…” Peter drew a shaky breath and his lips began to tremble as he tried to force himself to speak. His throat felt clogged and the all too familiar weight was beginning to slowly press back down on his chest, despite Tony’s steadying hand squeezing his own.
All he could hear was the buckle dragging across the wood as Carter stalked towards him. The wall behind him as he backed up too far, his eyes glistening when he finally realised there was nothing he could do.
“H – he – he…” Peter’s eyes burnt, and his scratchy throat formed a small lump that only seemed to grow the more he thought about the feeling of Carter’s work boot digging into the small of his back as hot breath glazed across his ear while whispered threats dripped from behind him. “He was in th – the lounge. I came out of my room, f – for school I mean, I – I had to walk to school –”
“I thought he dropped you off at school in the mornings, why were you walking to school? Especially after Tuesday night, I didn’t want you walking.” May’s face was pinched, the hand that wasn’t laying on Peter’s shoulder was clenched into a fist and Peter tried not to think about what Carter’s fist clenching meant.
“He… he never drove me to school,” his face was flushing again, and his eyes were welling without his permission. “N – never got lunch money either,” Peter sighed as his breath hitched, “he used it for coffee.”
“If you walked to and from school every day, never got lunch money, why didn’t you ever sit down and eat with me on weekends? Sweetie, you could have asked me for more foo –”
“I wasn’t allowed,” his voice was small, and despite the way his head was hung, Tony knew there were tears. “Not allowed to come out of m – my room, he – he… he made me throw up if he s – saw me eating.” Tony’s fist tightened, and Peter sniffled, Doctor Marshall lifted his hand to slow the onslaught of questions, but the mechanic ploughed forward.
“He made you throw up?” Peter nodded weakly, “how? Did he – did he force you to make yourself throw up?” Tony was about ready to throw up himself at the thought of Carter shoving his fingers down Peter’s throat until he gagged. “Did he do it himself, or was it –”
“N – no, no. He never… he didn’t do that, just – just hit me until it hurt s – so much I couldn’t keep it down.” Tony gritted his teeth together but was silently thankful Carter hadn’t made his son puke with his own fingers. Peter lifted his second hand to tug at the man’s sleeve and bury his face in his shoulder. “M’ sorry, I – I didn’t even realise I had lost that m – much weight until you said something.” He made an unconscious attempt to hide his tears and red-rimmed eyes, but his body loosened as he felt Tony rubbing his neck, avoiding his back for good reason.
“Peter, do you need me to step outside for a minute, give you some time to relax before we keep going?” He shook his head.
He wasn’t weak, he could answer some questions. It wasn’t as if anything was still happening, Tony had said Carter was gone, he was fine.
“M’ okay, s – sorry, you can keep going,” he leaned back from the embrace and shakily wiped his eyes with the hand which wasn’t adorned with a wrist brace. The doctor paused, he looked between the three of them and then back down to his clipboard before finally nodding.
“Did you want to continue describing how the injury occurred?” May rubbed his shoulder and Tony’s arm didn’t fall from his neck. “He was in the lounge, you came out of your room for school, that’s where we were at.” Peter took an unsteady breath and focused on the feeling of Tony and May’s grounding touches, tethering him to the solid lump of safety that they created for him.
“He just m – made me sit down, a – and I did,” he paused, trying to think of a way to explain what had happened next without giving anyone the wrong impression.
The words were simple, they made sense, but he was smart enough to know exactly what conclusions Tony and May would jump to. “It – it isn’t… it’s not what you think b – but he t – told me to… to take my shirt off,” the hand around his own squeezed tightly and he could see as May’s hair shifted when she abruptly turned to face him. The colour drained from Tony’s face and his mouth clenched further shut as he tightened his hold on Peter. “I didn’t know wh – why he told me to a – and he got mad when I tried t – to ask,” he didn’t think about how nobody in the room seemed to be breathing, everything was painfully quiet as he continued to stutter out an explanation. “H – he threw a remote… s – said he would make it worse if I didn’t… if I didn’t hurry up. I – I did it… m’ sorry, I was – I was already… everything already h – hurt so much and I just – I just couldn’t l – let it hurt any more than it already did.”
“P – Peter, did – did he… fuck kid, did he touch y –”
“No!” He cut Tony off desperately, “n – not that, h – he didn’t – it wasn’t that, he didn’t do that.” The tenseness in the room remained, and the teen started breathing harder, fearing the possibility that nobody would believe him. He stiffened his grip on Tony’s hand, scrabbling to shake his head frantically, to make them understand.
“Hey, Pete, it’s okay. I – if he did, it isn’t your fault, it would never be your fault. He’s messed up in the head and he’s never coming anywhere near you again, you can tell us the tru –”
“No! N – no, please T – Tony I’m not lying, I s – swear, I swear he didn’t. P – please believe me, I’m not lying, it wasn’t a – anything like that, he just u – used his belt to h – hit me! N – nothing else, I swear, please… please.” The doctor clicked his pen shut and waved a placating hand to clam Peter, whose breathing was beginning to hitch again as Tony’s face paled even more and May lifted her own hand to cover her mouth in horror.
“Hey, it’s completely fine Peter, we believe you. Everything’s okay, we understand you’re telling the truth here, it’s alright –”
“He did what? Peter, you just said he belted you, what the hell?” Tony was looking him directly in the eyes, the serious realisation of what the teen had just said split his gaze with feverish concern and anger for the man who hurt his kid. May was shaking her head side to side, hand still covering her mouth while her eyes welled, much like how Peter’s were beginning to.
“I’m sorry, I am, I’m sorry! I – I couldn’t run, m – my leg and he was holding me, I – I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry, m’ really sorry, I d – don’t want you t – to think… to think I’m w – weak, I – I t – tried to get away b – but the wall was in the way and he was j – just in front of me, I wasn’t fast enough.” His voice cracked as the first tear rolled down his cheek and Tony surged forward immediately to rectify Peter’s fright.
“No, no you’re not weak, god kiddo.” He gently shifted the boy, so he could tuck himself into the embrace without hurting himself. Peter shuddered as he buried his face away and clung to the back of Tony’s shirt as he tried to hold in his sobs. “I would never think that, don’t say sorry,” he looked up to May and she seemed to have held her tears back by sheer force of will as she pointed to Peter and mouthed ‘now.’ He bit his lip as the doctor stepped back and May had a hushed conversation with him by the door before letting him slip out to give the three privacy while Peter calmed down.
“Tony,” May murmured from her chair, “I think you shou –”
“Peter,” he nodded wordlessly, cutting her off to do what she was telling him to. “Pete, c’mon kiddo, I need you to look at me for this please.” He waited as Peter untucked his face and looked up at him through wet lashes, his lower lip still quivering as he bottled his anxiety. “Kid, I – I think we need to have a talk, there’s… there’s something I need to tell you the truth about and I should have told you sooner.” He sighed and looked up to the ceiling as if it held the answers, Peter was blinking up at him, his eyes still slightly red and his cheeks damp from the few tears that slipped past before Tony could wrap the teen in an embrace.
“It’s about your Mum Peter,” May scooted her chair forward and Peter held the hand she offered, still keeping his other arm around Tony as his head leant against his chest.
“O – okay, I uhm, I – I didn’t know you knew her that well,” the boy waited until Tony dropped his eyes from the ceiling and looked down at him. “I – is it a good talk or… or a b – bad one?” The genius scrunched his nose up and rubbed his face with the one hand which wasn’t wrapped around Peter.
“Honestly kiddo, I don’t kno –”
“It’s a good talk Peter, you’re gonna be really happy okay? I promise, Tony’s just working himself up over nothing.” He turned to look at May, an eyebrow raised, “what? You are, I told you he’d be over the moon, don’t deny it.” Tony shook his head, the small smile dropping from his face as he seriously thought about how he was going to tell Peter.
“I uh, I guess I’ll start at the beginning then, huh?” Peter was watching him, listening curiously, and Tony could almost see the gears whirring in his head as he processed every word. “I went to a press event, it wasn’t for Stark Industries specifically, just… uh, general scientists who were all working on something big.” He glanced back to May who was urging him on with her eyes, “I met your mum, she was… she was really nice, and I – I bought her a drink and… god, I’m sorry kid, this is – this is really not supposed to be this hard to say…” Peter was still staring at him with his large eyes, the redness was fading as well as the drying tear tracks. “We… we had a night? I – in a hotel… aaand that was kinda it for me, at least for the next four or so years I guess.”
“Um, okay? I – I don’t know why you uh, why you waited so long to say that? You slept with my mum, before my dad did, that’s… that’s fine.” He shifted slightly, repositioning so he didn’t have to crane his neck to look up at Tony’s face. “Just… if that was it for f – four years, when did you meet May and Ben? A – and why four years, what happened after four years?”
“Um… after four years I… I got Mary’s official will sent to me,” he kept a careful eye on Peter’s face, watching for any signs of discomfort or the painful look he got when he was trying not to think about a hard memory. “When I got the will, it was… it – it said that in the case of Mary’s passing I was supposed to be told… told that I uh…” Tony’s eyes flicked away from Peter’s, back to May, then around the room and back to the teen, he stared at the boy for a moment, the pause lingered on as he thought.
Once he said the words, there was no going back, if Peter reacted badly, despite what May said, it would have a lasting impact on their relationship. He couldn’t take back the truth and he couldn’t hide it from Peter anymore, he needed to put it out there and let the kid decide how he wanted to proceed, because this was all about Peter now. The child he called his son, who had been through hell for over a year, was going to have the freedom to control his own life and the people in it, and if the kid made the choice to keep his biological father close, he would oblige with a smile on his face.
If Peter decided he didn’t want that… Tony would give him what he wanted.
Because if Peter hadn’t felt like he was given the option to remove someone like Carter from his life, Tony refused to become the second monster.
“Peter, kid…” he fixed the boy with a levelled gaze, he hugged the teen close to his side, silently hoping it wasn’t the last embrace they would ever get. “Mary decided that if she ever passed away, I deserved to know that…”
He bit the inside of his cheek so harshly it stung, he tried to memorise what the rise and fall of Peter’s chest felt like against his own, the way the fluffy, chestnut curls brushed his neck when he turned his head to take in the wide, hazel eyes so much like his own.
“To know that,” he closed his eyes and took a breath, “that…” he let it out slowly and opened his eyes. “That I was your real Dad.”